Friday, May 06, 2011

Fun While Waiting

If you have to wait a week to have your RV repaired, American RV in Albuquerque isn't a bad place, at all, to wait. We have some nice shade trees next to our site.



If the park was full, we would have neighbors pretty close, but even then, we still would have a nice private patio.



One day Das Rollende Hotel spent the night in the park. We first saw this company when we were in Alaska. I don't know if all of the people who take these tours are from Germany, but this group was. There were 22 tourists, a bus driver and a guide. The tour provides breakfast and dinner and they go to restaurants for lunch.



They ride in the front of the bus and the rear provides sleeping space. It is kind of like a youth hostel on wheels, but this group was older people. They had been to Zion and Arches National Parks in Utah, and Taos. The morning they left here, they were headed to the Petrified Forest in Arizona, then on to the Grand Canyon. The whole trip lasts three weeks. Here you can see the clean-up after dinner.



Albuquerque is full of people who enjoy outdoor activities. Today we rode our bikes on the Paseo del Bosque trail along the Rio Grande River through the middle of town. It is 16 miles long, but we didn't ride the whole thing. We were impressed with the number of people biking, walking and jogging on the trail.



We eventually pulled off to a shaded bench near the Rio Grande River State Park so we could have lunch.



We saw these jetty jacks. Around 1950 they began putting these along the Rio Grande, especially in the city, to prevent debris from floods from being deposited too far from the river channel. Since a dam was built upstream, they are no longer necessary and there is apparently quite a debate in town about whether or not they should be removed.



We made a quick visit to the nature center, where we saw these turtles and a hummingbird feeder. The birds flew away when we took this photo.



When we returned to where our truck was parked, we realized we were next to the Botanic Gardens. Visitors there can also ride a train to the nearby zoo. There are two trains with cute steam engines.





There are some very attractive sculptures around the zoo parking lot.



Last, here is a picture of the cottonwood bosque along the Rio Grande. Bosque means forest.

2 comments:

  1. We rode our bikes on the same trail when we were at the Balloon Fiesta last year. It was only a block away from the RV parking area. Nice to have something like that in a big city.

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  2. Thanks for the interesting pictures. The bus looks really interesting. I can imagine a group bonding over three weeks together. Hopefully a compatable group to begin with.

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